ESPN Apocalypse is today

It was a big factor in maybe not the Thursday night dominance, but in NBC’s ability to run weaker shows out in other nights and timeslots and have them do OK and thus secure that #1 position.

John Skipper, president of ESPN, shockingly resigned this morning, citing a substance abuse issue.

I’m wondering if his company bleeding $ is “substance abuse” in this case.

Well why not both!

Just ask John DeLorean about how to manage that.

ESPN isn’t losing money, they just aren’t making it as fast as they used to.

And I was listening to Dan Labatard on ESPN radio this morning when this apparently was sent out over the ESPN texting machines. He actually read the text over the air, and cried while doing it. Apparently this guy was really well liked by the talent.

I believe there was a lot of talent that did not like him. Dan Patrick (no longer with ESPN) kind of routinely takes shots at the guy on his podcast/show.

Simmons and a couple other vets did a big podcast about ESPN this year, and my feeling is that Simmons respects the hell out of Skipper still, even though he was fired by him.

Some good context here.

Not Skipper. He went out of his way to praise skipper this morning when it broke.

Ahhhh, I must have misunderstood who he goes after.

AFAIK, he has never actually named names of the people who made it such a bad breakup, but the other morning he went out of his way to state that Skipper worked to smooth over all of the hurt feelings and reached out to him repeatedly.

So Ryan Russillo is gone from his morning slot and eventually from ESPN. They wanted to move him to the 3-6 slot and he didn’t want to do it. He said the break up is amicable.

I also know that Bomani Jones is done on the radio but will still be doing TV and pod casts.

Wow

So the coke problem wasn’t enough to cost him his job?

ESPN has quietly removed the flaming cesspool known as “the comments section”.

Probably the smart move for everyone…comments sections are the devil.

Hope Youtube is watching.

The ESPNpocalypse continues apace! Ryen Russillo is taking his ball and heading to The Ringer.

I wonder if The Ringer makes a play for Mina Kimes? She’s a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine, but that’s shutting down. And she just co-hosted The Ringer’s Big Little Lies aftershow.

The Ringer has quickly become my favorite sports site for in-general stuff.

They might. I saw something the other day about her getting a role covering the Rams. I know, everybody hates the Rams. Well, watch a different game I guess.

They have some pretty nice podcasts. Mostly I listen to Bill Simmons, the NBA ones, and the Rewatchables is a lot of fun. They were certainly all-in on Game of Thrones and Westworld. If I ever decide to finally get into those series, I’ll probably listen to some of that.